BMW Art Car Collection will be shown in AR for the first time at Art Basel

Since more than 50 years after its first edition, Art Basel has become one of the artworld’s leading events, attracting gallerists, artists, curators, journalists, and art lovers from all over the globe edition after edition.

From September 24 to 26, 2021, 272 leading galleries from 33 countries and territories will present a wide range of artistic oeuvres for the first time since the pandemic during Art Basel in Basel. BMW will offer its VIP shuttle and celebrates 50 years of BMW Group Cultural Engagement with an interactive exhibition.

On the occasion of its anniversary, BMW joined forces with Acute Art in 2021 to initiate a unique exhibition: For the first time ever, the renowned BMW Art Car Collection is shown in augmented reality (AR). The project will make the Art Cars digitally visible anywhere in the world. Through the app, which is free of charge, the vehicles can be viewed, placed, and shared on social media either individually or as a group. To this end, the real Art Cars were carefully scanned from all angles using a photogrammetry methodology, capturing every detail of the artists’ intervention on the car’s surface. Finally, the cars were assembled digitally to create an accurate representation of the Art Cars in AR. All Art Cars will be available on the App to coincide with Art Basel in Basel.

On September 22 and 23, 2021, BMW Group is guest at Kunstmuseum Basel showing the digital BMW Art Car Collection. The BMW Art Car by Alexander Calder, 3.0 CSL, 1975, will be on display and a specially created augmented reality area will invite guests to experience the “rolling sculptures” on-site.

To visit the exhibition please note that prior registration and booking of a time slot is mandatory. Please register here.

To fully discover and experience the interactive BMW Art Cars, the Acute Art app is available free of charge on the App Store and Google Play.

1. Scan the QR code (in the PDF attached) using your smartphone and download the Acute Art App via the App Store or Google Play.
2. Open the Acute Art app and select “BMW Art Cars”, select a car and then the “place” button.
3. Point your phone towards the floor and tap to place the work. Drag your finger across the screen to rotate and scale it.

The Acute Art app uses cutting-edge technology that works best on high-end phones with the latest software. The devices supported are iPhone X or above, and Samsung Galaxy S8 or equivalent. The app requires a phone with a minimum of 4GB of memory and Apple iOS 11 or Android 8.0 Oreo (API 24) operating system.